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Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Why I'm Afraid of Ants

Myrmecophobia (from Greek: μύρμηξ, myrmex, "ant" and φόβος, phóbos, "fear") is the inexplicable fear of ants. It is a rather specific phobia. [...] This fear can manifest itself in several ways, such as a fear of ants contaminating a person's food supply, or fear of a home invasion by large numbers of ants. (From Wikipedia)

When I was about 10 years old I was playing in the yard of the house across the street from my grandmother's place. I was crawling under a fence when I noticed my hand was itching something fierce. Glancing down, I discovered I was leaning in an ant hill, and big-ass red ants were crawling up my arm and biting my tender childhood flesh.

I ran screaming across the street to my grandmother's house, where I stripped off all my clothes in the middle of the kitchen to brush away the ants, right in front of most of my rather large extended family (my mother has thirteen brothers and sisters) who were visiting for dinner.

I HATE ants! We get the big carpenter ones in our house every summer and they drive me nuts! We also had an infestation of the little buggers last winter-in our freezer door! Our fridge has a built in ice/water machine, and they built a colony around the motor (which is warm). Every time you tried getting ice or water ants would come pouring out. We finally got rid of them but to this day I cannot use the ice machine. Yuck!

Yeah, I would just be tossing the whole fridge out to the curb. That's nasty. My parents always had problems with ants in their cottage, but that's... yeah. I have to go hose out my refrigerator now...

I don't mind lizards. Probably because I've always lived in a cold climate and never really had to deal with them. I have visited hotter areas where you get up in the morning and the side of the house/hotel is covered in lizards. I always thought that was cool. Certainly better than the six feet of snow we've been waking up to around here lately.

I don't mind ants as much as some other creepy crawlies. I can't stand earwigs. I'm a very big man (six foot two and 325 pounds) but my first inclination when I see an earwig is to jump on a chair and scream like a Victorian heroine! Sure, I resist the inclination, but that's what I feel like doing when I see one of those nasty buggers!

Earwigs are the Devil's spawn. I'm not as big as you so I probably jump higher, but my reactions are similar. They are the only bugs I go out of my way to squash. Spiders, beetles, even ants, whatever. As long as they stay out of my way I will stay out of theirs. But my hatred for earwigs burns with the heat and passion of a thousand suns.

Crap, I don't remember what I had for "E" day but it wasn't earwigs. I may have to go back and change it...

I usually try to find the balancing side to any argument, but on the topic of why ants should or should not be wiped from existence, I can't even be bothered to go look up what ecological function they serve. I'm sure they're good for something, I just don't care what it is.